Deadly Force
by Lys ap Adin
Summary: Haru's trained herself for this moment. A little violence. Gokudera x Haru.


**Title:** Deadly Force**  
Characters/Pairings:** Gokudera/Haru; Tsuna/Kyouko**  
Summary:** Haru's trained herself for this moment.**  
Notes:** Teen for violence. For KHRfest, prompt VI-29: Gokudera/Haru – Haru's first kill; "I don't regret it." 1742 words.

**

* * *

**

**Deadly Force**

Luca Baraldi looked at the gun Haru had trained on him and sneered, clearly unimpressed. "You wouldn't dare," he scoffed, beginning to advance on her again. "Now be a good girl and put that away, and we'll get back to what we were doing—"

"I said _no_, you asshole," Haru said, a part of her startled by how clear and calm her mind was and how steady her voice was. "If you come one step closer to me, I am going to kill you."

Baraldi rolled his eyes. "Oh, please, with that little peashooter? You couldn't hurt a fly with that thing."

He wasn't stopping—was stepping around the chair that Haru had placed between herself and him, in fact. Haru drew a breath and found that she'd settled into the same comfortable stance she'd practiced over and over on the range, the one that she'd worked to perfect under careful tutelage. Her feet were planted flat on the floor, apart and square, her arms were loose and comfortable, and the gun was steady in her hands as she said, "I did warn you," and pulled the trigger.

She was a good shot, and at this range, it would have taken work to miss. She didn't, of course; the bullet took Baraldi in the eye, just like she'd meant it to. Her shoulders absorbed the recoil, like they'd been trained through long hours of practice, as Baraldi's head snapped back with the impact of the bullet. The shot was loud in her unprotected ears, but there was no helping that.

Her training carried through; even though Baraldi was toppling over, probably already dead, she fired again, and again, to make sure of him, putting a second bullet in the left side of his torso, right where the heart was, and the third in his cranium. Baraldi sprawled across the floor, ungainly and ugly, and didn't move again.

Haru kept a wary eye on him anyway, though she was fairly sure of the kill, and noticed that she wasn't even breathing fast. She felt strangely detached from the whole experience, and wondered if she was going into shock as she stepped away from the body and listened to the building. The office had been deserted when she'd come in, which had been the first sign that Baraldi's invitation to discuss business wasn't all it had appeared to be, but that didn't mean the building was empty.

But she had training for that, too. It kicked in just as smoothly as the shooting lessons had. Haru scanned the room for anything that might incriminate her, but there was no obvious surveillance and nothing she could see that might identify her, aside from the three bullets in Baraldi.

He could keep those.

Haru put her gun back in her purse and checked herself over for blood—there wasn't any, which was a mercy—and straightened her hair. When she was satisfied with her appearance, she let herself out, keeping her pace steady and not too brisk.

She passed a young man on the stairs to the street; he had a worried frown and stopped her to say, "Did you hear that? I thought I heard a gun."

Haru widened her eyes appropriately. "A gun? How strange, I didn't hear anything."

She left him frowning and bewildered in her wake and kept going, slipping out onto the street and matching her pace with the crowd's, letting it carry her along and camouflage her until she was a good ten blocks away and felt comfortable enough to step into an alley and reach for her phone.

Tsuna-kun sounded startled to hear from her. "Haru-chan? Is everything okay?"

"Well, not exactly." Her voice was still steady and calm; Haru was beginning to be rather impressed with her own equanimity. "I'm sorry about the trouble, but I'm afraid I had to kill Luca Baraldi."

Maybe it was okay that she was calm, she decided, tipping her head back to look at the sweep of sky overhead as she listened to Tsuna-kun's reaction. He was clearly upset enough for the both of them.

* * *

"I _did_ warn him," Haru said later, after the car Tsuna-kun sent had whisked her home and she'd explained herself to him. She cradled the cup of tea that Kyouko-chan had pressed on her between her hands; the warmth of it felt good on her fingers.

Tsuna-kun was looking at her a bit strangely. "I believe you," he said, like he was trying to reassure _her_. "You did what you had to. No one could blame you for it."

"Of course not," Haru said, a little surprised at him. As if she was going to let anyone blame her for shooting a man who'd wanted to take what he'd had no right to! She sighed. "It's just too bad. I'd really hoped he was going to tell me what was going on with the Cizeta."

"Never mind that," Tsuna-kun told her. "We'll find out some other way. It's really not worth—"

Haru was glad that Hayato chose that moment to come bursting through the door, since his entrance interrupted Tsuna-kun and saved her the trouble of having to be annoyed with what was probably going to be a bout of well-intentioned overprotectiveness. Hayato's face was white and he was a rumpled mess; he'd probably rushed straight home from his meeting with the Sciotalle, bless his heart. He came straight to her, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tightly, all without saying a word.

Haru handed her cup of tea off to Kyouko-chan and leaned against him. "Hayato," she said, softly, and felt the shiver run through his frame.

Kyouko-chan was the one who cleared her throat and said, "Let us know if you need anything," before herding Tsuna-kun out of the room. Thank goodness they had her to be sensible, Haru thought, slipping her arms around Hayato.

Hayato didn't say anything till the door had closed after them; even then, all he managed was her name, hoarse and breathless. Haru tightened her arms around him, rubbing his back. "It's all right," she told him. "I'm okay. I promise."

He was so tense he was practically vibrating. "Give me a little while to convince myself of that, okay?"

Haru pressed closer, feeling the last of that strange detachment melt away in the face of his distress. "Take all the time you need," she told him, letting her hands smooth up and down his back.

Hayato shivered, arms squeezing her so tightly that it was almost difficult for her to breathe. Haru didn't complain, letting him cradle her to his chest and rest his cheek against her hair for as long as he liked.

Some of the tension eased out of him eventually and he said, "Tell me what happened? That idiot Yamamoto didn't say."

And Hayato probably hadn't waited long enough to find out before dropping everything and racing to her side, Haru thought, smiling helplessly. "Baraldi made a pass at me," she told him. "And he wouldn't take no for an answer, not even after I told him I'd kill him if he didn't leave me alone." That hadn't been all he'd said, of course, but there was no reason to hurt Hayato by repeating any of the ugly things Baraldi had accused her of being. "So I shot him, just like you taught me to. You'd have been proud of how perfect my form was."

The sound he made wasn't quite a laugh—it was too raw—but it was close enough. "Bullshit. You always aim low."

"No, really, it was perfect," she argued. "He went down with one shot. But I did like you said and made sure of him, just in case."

Hayato let out a shuddering breath. "Good girl." He lifted a hand and stroked her hair. "You okay?"

Haru thought about it. "More okay than I'd have thought I'd be," she confessed, resting her head against his shoulder and tucking a hand under his jacket to feel his heartbeat. It seemed to be slowing down and evening out. "I'm pretty sure I don't regret it."

"Why should you? Baraldi was scum." Hayato's voice was harsh. "I'd kill him again, if I could."

Haru closed her eyes and sighed, more relieved than she cared to admit that he _understood_. "I think Tsuna-kun is... a little worried by how calm I am," she ventured.

Hayato's response was slow and measured. "The Tenth... is a good man. Sometimes... sometimes he doesn't understand."

Haru sighed again and burrowed against Hayato's chest. "Well, I guess that's why we let him be the Tenth."

"Yeah." Hayato's fingers stroked her hair, gentle. "You going to be okay?"

"Of course I am." She'd been preparing herself for having to do this since the first day he'd taken her down to the firing range and told her what a gun was for, and that she shouldn't carry one if she wasn't prepared to use it. And perhaps it meant that _she_ wasn't a good person, but she couldn't help being sneakingly pleased by knowing that after this, the men from other Families would be much less likely to harass her. Haru thought she could probably live with not being a good person, if it made her job easier. She raised her head to look at him; his mouth was still tight and his eyes were strained. "Are _you_?"

Hayato touched her cheek, fingers barely brushing the curve of it. "Yeah, I just—" He stopped and bit his lip.

Oh, Hayato. Haru caught his hand and kissed his palm. "Let's take the rest of the day off," she told him. "And we can go home, and I'll stay in one place and let you cuddle me until you've managed to persuade yourself that I'm not going to vanish or fall apart or anything else bad. Okay?"

His smile was shaky, but the important part was the relief in his eyes. "Yeah, that sounds good."

"I thought so myself." Haru raised herself up on her toes and kissed him. "Come on," she said. "I need some cuddling."

Hayato snorted, and she knew then that he was going to be okay. "Bossy," he said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and starting them towards the door.

"Goal-oriented," Haru corrected him, and let the momentum of the familiar argument carry them home.

Yeah, they were going to be just fine.

**end**

Comments are always welcome!


End file.
